Contributed by Brian Rapkse, PhD, Emeritus Professor of New Testament Studies, Northwest Baptist Seminary.
Being part of a church plant in Vancouver is a first for Rita and me. We’ve been able to share in the excitement of the “birth” of a new church quite near where we live. To be sure, the process hasn’t been all sweetness and light over the last several years. Meeting place complications saw us shifting between two different community centers for a time before pastoral staff were finally able to secure the third venue that we now occupy. Attendance dipped through the chaos, but God has helped us hit stride again.
We Don’t “Just” Meet in a High School
It was a feat of vivid recollection and intense longing generated in a place of distant exile when one of the sons of Korah who had served in the Temple wrote, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty!” (Psalm 84:1) He ached for its courts and altar and cried out for the living God whose house it was (v. 2). How enviable were the little birds that nested near the altar and raised their young. Even more, how enviable the priests who lived in the Temple, praising God (vv. 3-5).
It takes vision to imagine the meeting place of our church that way. It’s one of the oldest high schools in East Vancouver (1927), and not purpose-built for adult worship or the kids’ program. I’m very grateful to God for the folks in our church who arrive hours before the service starts to set things up and stay hours after to take everything down. They’re aptly called the “transformation team” and they do a great job. But there’s no masking the reality that we meet in an old high school.
Things don’t actually change that much physically. However, a great spiritual transformation always occurs, and we have a high expectation of great things in it. When is a high school not “just” a high school? The answer is, when the followers of Jesus gather there to worship and hear God’s word and there is a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit.
One Sunday, Rita had the opportunity to talk to an alumna of the high school who’d been invited to church by a friend. The high school had been a place of trauma and damage for her. Now, here she was again, only this time experiencing an overwhelming sense of God’s presence in the auditorium.
She told Rita, “I really hope that what’s in the air in the auditorium this morning will stay and fill the classrooms through the week. The students could sure use it. Maybe they won’t have to go through what I did.”
We’re Not “Just” Ushers
Another first for Rita and me is that we were asked to serve as ushers. We’ve never done that before as a regular part of our service, whether together or apart! It’s given us a whole new insight into and conviction about what it is to serve God at the threshold. The Korahite Psalmist, part of the company of temple singers and doorkeepers, declared the values of worship and service with absolute clarity and force: “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God….” (Psalm 84:10)
We agree!
In some ways, the usher’s task is a humble one. The little manual we were given says, we are to be active participants in people’s “service experience from the moment they enter the auditorium to the moment they leave.” That means taking the initiative in being attentive, sensitive, watchful for cues and waiting on the Holy Spirit to guide. It’s about making a warm, friendly connection, facilitating people’s comfort, minimizing their distractions, seeing to their safety and, yes, kindly addressing their complaints. We’re there to serve people, not ourselves.
It all seems easy enough, but sometimes not. I recall with some discomfort the Sunday morning the pastor received a “man with a gun” report from the police. He asked me to stand at the main entrance to the school to “maintain a presence” just in case. I followed through and was quite relieved to see a police car parked near the entrance. Nothing came of it.
Other times, you notice both patterns and their interruption, like the several Sundays when the fellow who usually sat with his girlfriend began to show up alone. After a few weeks, there she was again! I went over to tell them I was so glad to see them both together in church; I’d been concerned that something might have happened. She volunteered that she’d been recovering from a car accident which, thankfully, wasn’t going to affect their wedding plans. I was able to join in their relief and joy before God that Sunday morning (Romans 12:15). And we all got much better acquainted!
As ushers, Rita and I have found that “church” happens as much at the periphery and behind the scenes where ushers serve as it does at the normally understood heart of things. Sometimes its palpable that God is working at the threshold.
A little while back, Rita and I were “job shadowed” by a young couple who had been asked to consider serving as ushers. We were to do an orientation that included, beyond nuts-and-bolts matters, sharing about “experiences of when we were guided by the Spirit and took initiative.” We didn’t get to share about our experiences as we ran out of time.
We did, however, share an experience together.
Just before service started, another alumnus of the high school who’d started attending (ah, the stories I could tell!), came up to the door where my understudy and I were greeting people. He’d invited a friend from his Templeton days to come to church. He’d been praying and patiently waiting for him to show for several weeks. Something, however, had set him off as the service began that morning. He came over to tell me he was leaving. I didn’t want to argue with him. But what if his friend showed up after he left? All I could think to do was pray, so as the three of us bowed our heads, I confessed my ignorance and helplessness, asked for God to figure it all out and said, “Amen.” About ten minutes later, the alumnus who’d left showed up with his friend in tow. He told me that just as he reached the bus stop on his way home, the bus pulled up and his friend got off. His conclusion was that they had to come back for the service.
God works at the understood heart of things. He also works at the periphery, in the quietness of the comings and goings. Where God is, is the place to be. Work with God and watch for his working.